I hope she’ll be able to deliver the message herself. But in my experience, it’s unlikely.

  Chapter Six

  “Nothing from Uber,” Zara says as we make our way down to Arnie’s. It’s not far and since all the morning traffic is already over, it makes for a pleasant drive. I’m actually appreciating how green everything is today. Spring was always Matt’s favorite season; I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it this year without him. “They don’t have Hannah Stewart in their system.”

  “Margaret must have been mistaken,” I say. “Try Lyft. We need to make sure no one else picked her up.”

  Zara nods and gets on the phone again, calling into the ride-share.

  I go back over the meeting with Margaret. I let my emotions regarding Matt override my better judgement again. And for the second time while on the job, I got distracted thinking about him. Thankfully, this time it wasn’t in the middle of a high-stakes negotiation ending in a firefight. But still, I can’t be letting my guard down like that. It’s been four months. I need to be able to maintain my focus or this homecoming is going to be short-lived.

  Instead, I think about Hannah. It’s obvious she was afraid of someone. And I have to assume whoever she was on the lookout for has something to do with those pills we found. But finding whoever sold or gave them to her is going to be near-impossible, if Margaret is to be believed. Hannah isn’t the kind of person who has a lot of contacts in that world…though there may be a few rich kids who’ve dipped their toes in. And if the drugs are spreading from friend to friend, maybe we need to look at her other acquaintances.

  Still…it’s strange. I’d expect this behavior from a high schooler or someone in college, not a professional in the workforce. Which brings me back to my original hypothesis: the drugs have something to do with money. Money that Hannah needs for whatever reason. And I have a feeling once we find whoever sold or gave them to her, we’ll find who took her.

  “Still nothing,” Zara says, hanging up. “Maybe only Margaret thought she saw Hannah schedule them.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But aren’t there a few local ride-share companies? We need to check those too, just to make sure. People these days aren’t loyal to one company over the other; they’re going to use whoever can get them home the quickest and cheapest.”

  “Right,” Zara says, checking her phone. “There’s one local called Ryde 4 Lyfe. That’s Ryde, with a ‘y’ and the number four. In case you were wondering.”

  “Sounds like a winner,” I say as we pull up to Arnie’s. There’s no parking on the street so I have to pull around the building and park in the back. There’s only one other car here, which doesn’t surprise me, given it’s Monday morning. They probably aren’t even open yet. But that suits us better. It would be a lot harder to get what we need with a crowded lunch or dinner rush.

  “You want me to…” Zara holds up her phone as we get out of the car.

  “Once we’re done here,” I say. “Let’s see what they can tell us.”

  The front door is locked, so we have to go around to the side again. I end up banging on the door for a solid minute before I hear a deadbolt shoot on the other side and the door swings out, almost smacking into me.

  “What?” A large man with a square jaw says. His eyes are bloodshot, but his face looks like it’s been chiseled from stone. He’s got a five-o’clock shadow that’s gotten out of control and is glaring at the two of us like we’ve just kicked his dog.

  I badge him. “Agent Slate with the FBI. This is Agent Foley. May we have a minute?”

  He lets out a long breath like he’s considering slamming the door in our faces. But eventually he steps aside to let us in.

  We come back through the kitchen which looks clean, for the most part, through a swinging door into the main bar area. The whole room is dark, and the chairs are all up on the tables.

  “Wanna tell me what this is all about?” the man asks, following us in. He goes to a tap behind the bar and pours himself a water which he downs in one gulp.

  “Rough night?” I ask.

  “It’s basketball season,” he says. “Seems like every night is a rough night.” He pours himself another water.

  “Are you the owner?” I ask.

  “General manager,” he replies. “Ed.” He holds out a hand.

  I take his hand. “Got a last name, Ed?”

  His eyes flick from me to Zara and back again. “Bauer.” Zara stifles a laugh while I have to bite my lip. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead,” he says. “I’ve heard it all before.”

  I shake my head. “No, that’s fine Mr.…Bauer.” I shoot Zara a glance, but she turns away, chuckling to herself as she pretends to inspect something behind her. “Were you here on Saturday night?”

  Ed’s eyes stay on Zara for a minute before returning to me. “I’m here every night. Robbins won’t give me a night off. It’s bad enough I have to open every morning too.”

  “Robbins?” I ask.

  “Jerry Robbins, the guy who owns the place. Though you’d never know it by coming in here. About the only thing he does around here is count the money.”

  “Sounds like you need a new job,” I say.

  He shrugs, taking another sip of water. “Things will be better once the season is over. Another week and I can start sleeping again.” He walks over and flips on some of the lights, bathing the main room in fluorescents.

  I pull out my phone and bring up Hannah’s picture, showing it to him. “Did you see this woman on Saturday night?”

  He studies the picture for a moment, then shakes his head. “Maybe. I’m not sure. We were slammed. Tons of people in and out all night. She could have been here, but she doesn’t stand out to me.”

  I put the picture away. “Em,” Zara says, pointing to small black orbs nestled in the ceiling and in the corners of the room.

  “Fancy cameras,” I say. “Those look like the kind they use in casinos.”

  Ed nods. “Yeah, Robbins is paranoid someone is going to steal off him. He’s got more cameras than he has employees.”

  “Do you still have the footage from Saturday night?” I ask.

  Ed shoots a glance back in the direction of the restrooms. “Yeah, it stays on the server for a month, but…”

  I look at him, then look at the empty room. “You need to get things started here.”

  “I’d show you if I had time, but the other employees won’t be in for another hour and I need to start setting up. If I don’t, we won’t be ready when the lunch rush comes in.”

  “I understand,” I say. “I used to wait tables in college. Once some of your other employees come in would you have time to show us?”

  He nods. “Probably.”

  “Great, we’ll wait out in our car.” I motion to Zara that we should head out.

  Ed rubs at one eye. “That’s not necessary.” He pulls a couple of chairs down from one of the tables. “It’s not like you’re going to disrupt me in here. What do feds like to drink anyway?”

  “Blood,” Zara replies. “The fresher, the better.”

  “Coffee will be fine, thank you,” I say, shooting her a look. She smirks at me as we take a seat. Ed grins at us and retreats into the back. “You can call that ride-share now,” I say.

  “And miss the sexual tension between you and Mr. Eddie Bauer?” she laughs. “No way.”

  “Will you shut up?” I say, hushing her. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure,” she says. “You don’t see the way he’s looking at you? I mean jeez, Em. Look at those muscles under that shirt that fits him just right. If you’re not going after Coll, you should at least give this guy a chance.” She reaches over and takes my hand. “It’ll be good for you.”

  I withdraw my hand. “I’m just not ready yet.” She gives me a knowing look as Ed brings over two cups of steaming coffee. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. I’ll let you know as soon as we can start looking at those videos.” He heads back and disappears behind the swinging door to the kitchen.

  Zara nudges me. “Feel it yet?”

  “Don’t you have a phone call to make?” I ask.

  “Yeah, okay,” she replies, stepping away from the table to make the call. I take a sip of the coffee as I watch the swinging door swift back and forth until it stops. I don’t know what she’s talking about; I didn’t feel any tension. Am I just oblivious, or is she making it up? Then again, I really don’t know how to flirt or recognize when someone is making a move on me. I’ve never been good at it. My friends in college used to tease me that I was completely blind to anyone who showed an interest in me, going so far to say that people needed to spell it out before I’d get it. Which is ironic, considering what I do for a living. You’d think with all my skills as an investigator and a profiler I’d be able to tell when someone is interested in me, but I’m just not wired that way. When it comes to anyone else, I can see as if I had 20/10 vision. But when it comes to me, it’s like I’m walking around with my eyes closed. Back then I would always just explain it away, that I only had eyes for Matt, even during those brief times we weren’t together. It was less embarrassing than telling them I couldn’t tell someone was hitting on me.

  “Got it,” Zara says, sitting back down. “Well, maybe.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Hannah is a registered user with them, but they’re not willing to release their ride records,” she says.

  “What? You told them who you worked for, didn’t you?”

  “I told him. The guy on the phone was a complete ass. Told me I better serve him with a warrant if I want a look at his records and then hung up on me.”

  “Oh, we are definitely going to visit him next,” I reply. “Once we see what’s on these tapes.”

  “These what?” Zara asks, winking at me.

  “Ha. Ha. Yes, I realize no one uses tapes anymore. I can’t help it; I grew up with people saying that all the time. I even made a mixed tape or two back in the day, before I had a CD burner.”

  “Oh, now you’re really dating yourself.” She laughs.

  “You’re like, one year younger than me,” I say. “You’ve got no room to talk.”

  “Tell me about Napster, grandma. Did you really wait three hours to download a file just to find out it was a foreign language version?”

  I take a sip from my cup. “Keep it up and you’re gonna find this coffee all over that new blouse of yours.”

  We banter back and forth for a while as more employees of Arnie’s begin to show up. A few of them shoot us looks, but most ignore us as they go about their morning opening duties, one making his way around us to finish taking down all the chairs and get the tables ready for customers. After about forty-five minutes Ed reappears. “Ready?” he asks.

  “Thanks again for the coffee,” I say, raising my empty mug to him. “It was good.”

  “Local brew from here in town,” he says, leading us to the restrooms. Beyond the doors is a third door marked “employees only” which also requires a key.

  Inside is a standard office with a desk, a couple of filing cabinets and a shelving unit overflowing with purchase orders, and inventory lists. There’s a second room off the first, which houses little more than a desk, a computer and four monitors. The room is significantly cooler than the first office, and it’s a tight squeeze getting all three of us in there. Eddie takes a seat and taps the space key, bringing up live feeds of every angle of the place. I see now what he was talking about; this Robbins guy has some high-quality cameras for a bar. Which is good news for us.

  “Saturday night?” Eddie asks. “What time?”

  I check my notes. “She was here between eight-thirty and almost eleven.”

  He taps a couple of keys and the images on the monitor change, showing a busting bar, full of people. “This is eight-thirty,” he says, looking back at me. “Just use the arrow keys to skip forward or rewind. Space will take you back to the bank of cameras, just click on whichever one you want.” He gets back up and has to squeeze past me to get out. I can’t help but feel a slight tingle as his body brushes up against mine.

  “If you need anything else, just come and find me. I’ll probably be around the bar.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Bauer.” Zara snickers.

  I shoot her a look. “Thank you, this is really helpful.”

  “Good luck,” he says, giving me one last look before leaving us to it.

  Zara giggles as she sits down in the chair, giving me a knowing look. “I know you had to have felt that.”

  Chapter Seven

  It takes us nearly an hour, but given that the bar has nine different cameras, and all the footage is in black and white, it took some time to pick out Hannah on the various feeds. The good news is we have a clear view of her for almost the entire evening. The bad news is it’s almost impossible to tell if someone was watching her or not. With so many people in the bar, it’s possible someone could have come in, clocked her, then waited outside for her to leave. Unfortunately, Arnie’s only has two cameras outside. One is on the side door which we came through and the other is on the front door.

  “Okay,” Zara says, peering at the screen as she makes the image larger. “Here’s Hannah at the end of the night, with Margaret. There, see?”

  The two figures on the screen are unmistakable. It looks as though they’re having an argument. Margaret was right, Hannah looked nervous the entire evening. “That must have been when Margaret offered to come back with her.”

  ”And there, she’s not even looking at her phone as she leaves,” Zara points out. “But here,” She switches to another view, this one using the camera outside the building at the same time code, “Now she’s looking at it, like she’s checking the status of her ride.”

  “So she definitely called someone,” I say. “Maybe we have this wrong. She could have called another friend to pick her up.”

  “Possible,” Zara says. We watch as Hannah makes her way around a small crowd of people to wait by the street. Eventually the crowd dissipates and she’s out there alone. I can tell by the way she’s holding herself she doesn’t feel safe. Why doesn’t she just go back inside to wait? Is she too afraid of running into Margaret again? Finally a car pulls up, but it’s so far away from the camera I can’t tell the make or model.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “Some kind of sedan. Light in color. Could be gray, or a light blue.”

  “Definitely a ride-share,” I say. “She’s checking with the driver first before getting in the back.” Once she’s in the car pulls away slowly. If we had a better angle we might be able to at least see the taillights, which would give us a better indication of the model. “Rewind it to the car and screen shot it. I want to send that over to analysis. They might be able to get something on the vehicle.”

  Zara taps a few buttons and I hear the printer in the other room starting up. We run back through the whole sequence again, starting at eight-thirty-three when she walks into the bar. Other than Margaret, she went up to the bar twice and ordered something before returning. Each time it looks like a different guy tries to pick her up, but she refuses both of them.

  “What do you think?” Zara asks as we watch the encounters over and over again. “One of these guys might have followed the ride-share?”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Looks to me like they ignore her the moment she rejects them, moving on to other targets.”

  “Any luck?” Ed calls from the other room. I look behind me to see he has two wrapped packages in his hands. “You guys missed lunch. Thought you might be hungry.”

  “Yes, please,” Zara says, taking one of the packages and unwrapping it. It’s a turkey club.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” I say, taking the other one. “Thank you.”

  “It’s no problem,” he says. “I figure you guys probably work through more meals than you’d like.”

  The smell wafting off the club makes my stomach rumble. I didn’t realize just how hungry I really was. “Hey, before you go,” I say to him as he’s turning to leave. “Do you recognize either of these guys?”

  Zara pulls up the footage of the two men who hit on Hannah. The angle isn’t the best, but in one of them, Eddie is visible in the background, making drinks. He leans close to the screen, and I can’t help but smell the aftershave on him this time. He shakes his head. “Sorry. They don’t look familiar to me. We have a few regulars, but I don’t recognize those guys.” He stares at the image for a moment longer. “That’s her, isn’t it?”

  I nod. “Hannah Stewart. In the flesh.”

  “I do sort of remember her now. She seemed really on edge, like she needed those drinks. Kept ordering cosmos. What do you guys want with her?”

  “She’s missing,” I say, prompting a look from Zara. I wouldn’t have normally revealed that to him, but I’ve just had a thought. It’s possible this place could be the stakeout spot for the kidnapper. “Have you had any other reports of missing women from here?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Not that I’ve heard about, anyway.”

  It was worth a shot. “Zara, go ahead and print out the pictures of these guys too. We need to identify them.”

  “Got it,” she says, a mouth full of turkey club. The printer in the other room whirrs again. I pull out my card for Eddie.

  “If you happen to see either of these men in here again, or Hannah, please give us a call.”

  “Sure thing.” He pockets the card. “Is this your personal number?”

  “Yep. Don’t be afraid to call if you see something. I’m always available.” He gives me something of a sideways grin and I realize what I’ve just said. I stand there, awkwardly, staring at him until he finally excuses himself and returns to the bar.

  Zara bursts out laughing as soon as he’s gone. “I’m always available!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I reply. “Let’s get the hell out of here. We have a weasel to visit.”

  She packs the rest of her sandwich back up and grabs the papers off the printer. “That was absolute gold. I’m gonna tell Janice I need to always be by your side, just so I can’t miss these little nuggets.”